About Us

Katherine Elmer

Katherine Elmer grew up in the green hills of Central Vermont (unceded Abenaki territory) and is a Clinical Herbalist, receiving her formal training at the Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism. She is also a national board certified health and wellness coach (NB-HWC) affiliated with the UVM Osher Center for Integrative Health (https://www.uvm.edu/osher) as part of the Comprehensive Pain Program team. Katherine founded Spoonful Herbals nearly a decade ago and is half of Spoonful’s Co-director duo. She is an earth priestess and ceremonialist of Celtic and Nordic bloodlines. She is a lecturer of Herbal Medicine at the University of Vermont and Vermont State University. She also co-founded Railyard Apothecary in Burlington and transitioned from a Director and Clinician role at Railyard in 2022.

Kara Buchanan

Kara Buchanan received her formal herbal training at the Sage Mountain Advanced Herbal Training Program with Rosemary Gladstar. As a community herbalist, culinary creatrix, and master gardener, she has created herbal recipes and products and maintained medicinal herb gardens for more than three decades. Kara served as co-founder and co-director of Spoonful Herbals until 2025. She continues to serve as an educator and stewards the Rooted Heart Rising medicinal garden at Rock Point in Burlington, VT which serves as the primary classroom for Spoonful's Community Herbalism Apprenticeship program and grows many of the cultivated plants used in Spoonful Herbals products.

Gus Buchanan

Gus has been keeping Honeybees for 25 years and is an active member of the Vermont Beekeepers Association. His formal training has included classes with local organic beekeeper and author Ross Conrad and an intensive training at Spikenard Bee Sanctuary in Floyd, VA led by Gunther Hauk and Alex Tuchman.  His focus on organic approaches and biodynamic beekeeping has helped to direct his bee-centered approach.  His goals are to provide a suitable home for the bees by treating for mites and other threats to the colony (and as a member of the wider community of local colonies) encouraging abundant habitat and flowering resources for honeybees and other native solitary pollinators, and harvesting honorably the resources of the hive. Gus offers beekeeping classes and mentorships and Spoonful Herbals is honored to include the gifts of his local hives exclusively in the herbal medicine we create.

Jackie Bishop

Jackie Bishop is an herbalist, educator and artist with a love for culinary crafting. She is constantly inspired by plants and the natural world in all of her makings, whether that be in her glass work (her primary art medium) or in her botanical beverages and plant-based cooking. She holds the Social Media, Marketing and Program Support role with Spoonful Herbals, as well as teaching culinary focused workshops. Additional she works as the Marketing Director and Art Instructor at Davis Studio in South Burlington. As an educator, she enjoys sharing her varied skill sets in art, herbalism and crafting with others in a fun, simplified lesson giving the student room and encouragement to experiment and develop their own unique ideas!

Phoebe Paron

Bronislaw Grala

Bronislaw Grala (Broni) is a local wildcrafter and herbalist who has been living and learning from the land, people, and community in the Burlington, Vermont area (Abenaki territory) for about 25 years. He has worked a variety of professions and currently is a mentor at Crow’s Path in Burlington. He also is an alumni of Spoonful Herbals Community Herbal Mentorship Program and is now the Gleaning and Wildcrafting Lead and a Garden Manager for Spoonful Herbals. He spends as much time as possible learning about the plants, fungi, and other beings in nature that can provide us humans with such abundance in a variety of ways. He believes that wildcrafting (foraging) and getting to know the plants as nourishing and healing for us humans, and in turn giving back to the plants as we can, is one of the great ways of connecting with the land and bringing about real conservation ethics and behaviors.